What War Makes of Us
by TeggieLady
Summary: When one war is lost or won another one starts...but are there any winners in war? Master/Rose, Doctor Ten, Jack
1. Trenches

**What War Makes of Us**

**By TeggieLady**

_**Chapter One:**_ Trenches

On the 11th of November, 1918, 'The Great War' ended.

Italy was split by the First World War. Separated by language barriers, created by the many different forms of Italian; divided by political views; ripped by depression due to mass debt, inflation and casualties of the war. Benito Mussolini claimed he had the answer to peoples' prayers for a single, strong country.

'Tinensmo' or comradeship of the trenches.

Mussolini - having fought in the army - believed war was what was needed to bring people together just, like it had brought soldiers together in the trenches.

He believed the horrors, the death and the pain of war was the only way to unite the people, and whatever the cost, it was worth it. Millions of people brought together through guns, grief and genocide.

In 1939, the Second war began. Many of the men, who had been in the First War, who had believed it to be the 'War to end all Wars' were still alive to see their sons fight in the Second.

* * *

The sound of a dying TARDIS was the only thing the Time Lord heard, inside his head.

The last man standing.

The last Time Lord alive.

Everyone else was dead.

Shame.

The sharp electrical crackle of the wires fizzing out, like the last beep on a life support machine before it shows a thin luminous green line in simple solidarity.

At one point in his life he prided himself with the need to be alone, the need to be winner of wars.

History with Daleks never did run smooth.

There never was any passion behind that love affair.

Now he was alone.

The Time Lord lay on the console floor and wondered why he should regenerate. All those times he had fought and stolen lives, and now he had a choice... Should he end it here and now, once and for all?

The Council thought he would have stayed and fought, when they brought him back.

They always were such trusting fools.

He had run.

Like the coward his Father had always claimed him to be, since that first moment he had glimpsed into time itself, at the tender age of eight and came back screaming like the small child he had always fought so hard not to be.

Now he had left him for dead, his brother.

Not the first time, that's to be sure, but certainly the last.

The Time Lord smiled as he remembered a time, far back in his younger days when he had recognised the Daleks shear power and importance to the Universe and tried to help them in their goal. They had bribed him, then turned, shameless in their betrayal, of course. Or he had bribed and betrayed them, he couldn't quite remember. So many years, who could keep track of these things.

The point of that exercise had been to kill his brother, to be the last one alive.

Well brother, thought that last Time Lord, this one's for you.

And with that the Time Lord regenerated.

* * *

A recording now sits in a museum on Balla, a fifty-year old recording no one listens to. The tape had only ever been played once, any more and it would have fallen to pieces.

There is a transcript for members of the public to read, for students to study and the elderly to sigh and reminisce about The Dictator and his downfall. Everyone over a certain age remembers what they were doing that day it all ended. The day the resistance finally won, slaughtering the evilest man their planet had ever known.

The transcript reads:

"It wasn't my fault, I couldn't have stopped it."

"He did what he thought was right."

"It was never meant to end that way, I loved him and he just…died."

The transcript shows the words, last words, of the off-worlders, when questioned by the authorities; the only witnesses of the revolution that lead to the Dictator's death.

The day the world was changed forever.

Now, history books mark the days before and after it. The Death of the Dictator. It had been too horrible to remember, yet too horrible for mankind to dare forget.

The Death of Harold Saxon.


	2. Recruitment

_**Chapter Two: **__Recruitment_

The noise in the nearby, luscious green bushes of Gordon Ore Four was by far the most irritating noise the Doctor had heard in a very long time. A very, very long time.

He had explained to both Rose and Jack, shortly after they arrived at the planet, that the noise was interfering with his telepathic out waves. Something neither humans had understood, of course. How could they? Neither of them was as advanced in age or experience, or had telepathic convictions to understand such….

Rose and Jack. Jack and Rose.

They had more in common than he had first thought.

For instance, Rose had never accidentally flinched when Jack walked into a room.

And Jack had been there for Rose, doing the domestic stuff she needed doing since she came back. Shopping, talking and such. It wasn't that he didn't want to spend time with them. No, they were his companions. No, the problem was the guilt. For leaving Jack behind and for turning Rose into…well, him really. Only with a weaker telepathic range. One so small, it was expressed through second-hand feelings of joy, warmth or sadness. For a very brief moment in time, just for a short second or two. It was unlikely Rose was even aware of it.

The two anomalies, Jack and Rose, were getting on like a house on fire, which was, often, like all accidental fires started in a home.

Dangerous.

Anyway...

The problem was not the bushes themselves. No, the Doctor quite liked plants; he had a TARDIS garden full of them. The problem was the high pitched buzzing from the insects that surrounded them. These were the insects distracting him, making it impossible for him to find the TARDIS with telepathy. Something he had been using for the past eight hundred years.

This difficulty was unlikely to have increased further, if they hadn't been trying to hide from a tribe, who found human meat a prized delicacy.

Lost and hiding in a noisy, buzzing bush was not the Doctor's idea of fun.

"Doc, where the hell did you park?" stage whispered the man, not long ago a Caption in Cardiff. Of course, that had been before the fall of his comrades, two of the members of his team. He left in the TARDIS to get away for a while, then come back only five or six seconds after he had left. In a time machine, Jack could be away for as long as he needed. Fifty or sixty years should do it.

"Jack, I didn't park, I materialised. And I have no bloody idea. Get your scanner and have a look." At that remark, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver.

"I'll look with my eyes then, shall I?" snapped Rose, seeing the first few warriors just coming into sight from behind the mass of trees.

"Got it!" cried the Doctor as the screwdriver started to buzz, "This way!" he took off in the opposite direction to one the humanoid warriors were coming from.

The thud of the bare footed tribe, their battle cries and chief chef were getting further away, as the Doctor and his companions ran.

When they got back to the TARDIS, the Doctor immediately started the sequence to dematerialize. Rose and Jack were laughing in relief. Rose was the first to stop when she realised that the Doctor had already set the controls to a new location.

"Where're we going?" asked Rose, frowning.

"It wasn't just the bugs," answered the Doctor inconspicuously.

"What?"

"It wasn't just the bugs that made my telepathic Time Lord senses go tingly." He started to explain, though still not looking at her. "I mean, yes, they helped make things fuzzy, but it was something else. Like a blackout patch. Something doesn't want to be found."

"And you're trying to find it?" asked Jack, eyebrows raised. "How?"

"I can track a telepathic being with my mind, but whatever it is, it's making everything go spinning up there. And not in the fun-at-the-fair sort of way, but the trying-to-hold-onto-your-lunch-as-you-take-round-three-on-the-dodgems kind of way." The Doctor rambled, while typing into the computer screen. He looked up. "Oh, Rose, we haven't been on the dodgems in this body, have we? Next stop."

She didn't know if he meant her new body or his.

Rose interrupted him mid rant – he could go on and on about other fairground tenderises. "So you can't track whatever it is without feeling dizzy, but the TARDIS…"

"Yes, indee dodee!" Bellowed the Doctor.

"Off we go."

* * *

The TARDIS' door opened with a loud creek that was lost in the hustle and bustle of the streets of Balla. The noise of angry bargainers (afraid of not getting their money's worth); animals carrying heavy woven brown bags of fruit (most looking like purple pineapples). Oh, quite a hectic scene. The animals looked similar to elephants, only with three extra eyes.

The weather was hot and the ground a dusty dirt path. Stall after stall selling fish, meat and strange powerful spices. Jack smelt them immediately as he stepped out of the TARDIS, following after Rose and the Doctor.

"Where are we?" asked Rose, looking up at the two blood red suns beating down above their heads.

"Balla Fourteen." Said the Doctor, grinning proudly. "The only other country on the planet Balla."

"So, what's the other country called?" asked Rose.

"Balla Fifteen."

"Ah"

"The planet Balla is split into two equal parts, one has oil rigs, which is shipped to other parts of the Universe and the other relies on a more agricultural way of life, which means they are less well off. We happen to have landed in the agricultural one."

The Doctor didn't notice Jack leave to have a look around, as he was wrapped up in his own explanation.

"The People of Balla, both countries, are ruled by a Queen. She is not given a name upon birth. They only call her 'Princess', then later 'Queen'. The only time she is allowed out of the castle is to celebrate the anniversary of her coronation."

"Poor thing, she only comes out once a year." Rose tilted her head to on side, her eyes looking at him questionly.

"Yep." Grinned the Doctor before adding cheekily. "And if that day happens to be Halloween then I think it's your mother."

"Oi!"

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Jack's voice came so loudly from the other side of the market that it caught the attention of plenty of people, Rose, the Doctor and a few other people included.

A woman lay on the floor, early thirties with dark brown hair and dark skin, like most people on the planet. Huge sobs wracked her body and she seemed to be struggling to breathe. Jack bent down and carefully helped the woman to her feet.

* * *

"My son!" she cried unabashed, "my wonderful son…" the rest of her voice was lost in sobs.

"Let go of him!" bellowed Jack "Let go right now!" he was yelling at a guard, having let go of the mother to grab the heavy built man by his embroidered shirt, a costume of red and green. Another guard turned to help his friend, after shoving a boy of no more than fifteen into a horse drawn cart and slamming an iron gate shut.

"Orders from on high, ma'am," sneered the guard, talking to the crying woman. Roughly, he held Jack by the scruff of the neck, while the other guard kept his arms trapped behind his back.

"Every man over twelve is assigned to the army, rules are rules. "

"You can't do that!" bellowed Jack, "you can't!"

"Get him in the cart!" yelled the guard to his friend, still holding Jack at bay. The two of them hauled a kicking and screaming Jack into the locked cart as they had done with the boy.

"Wait!" the Doctor grabbed hold of Rose's arm as she went to help Jack. They stood just a few feet from where the commotion was taking place. "You try and help and you'll go in there too, we need to talk to someone. There's the only way to find out what's going on. Then we rush in, sonic screwdriver blazing."

They both watched the cart go farther and farther along the dirt road, carrying Jack into the distance. They watched it long after it had disappeared and even longer after the rest of the onlookers stopped watching, going back to their daily lives.

Normal occurrence, it seemed.

* * *

The man at the "Split Road Inn" was rather helpful. Well, as much as a man, who is pissed out of his head, can be helpful.

"About a year ago now, I'd say. The war." Said man, with thin white hair, whispered to the Doctor over the noise of a loud pipe organ being played. He was leaning across the bar to speak near the Doctor's face, completely unaware of the discomfort his foul ale-smelling breath.

"Civil war? On Balla?" the Doctor frowned; he couldn't remember anything like that, not at this time.

"Just Balla fourteen, sir, the Queen ran off, to the posher country, Balla fifteen."

"Right." Nodded the Doctor, "so, you all just sorta charged at the palace and killed everyone expect the Queen, who escaped." He nodded once more, "Mind if I ask why?"

"Ah, well, she had her own private army, we didn't know about, you see," the bartender's eyes widened and he nodded slightly, like a secret had been revealed.

"No, I mean... why a civil war? Why attack the Queen?" the Doctor leaned in closer.

"Well" the man started, then stopped and frowned. "I don't know it just seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Right…" the Doctor rolled his 'r' and mirrored the man's expression form moments before.

Just then the door of the inn swung open, a flash of sunlight illuminating the dark, smoky pub. The figure walked in and the door was shut once again.

"She got home alright." Smiled Rose sadly as she came to sit at the bar with the Doctor.

"Good," he replied, before turning to the man, "and now people are being recruited for?"

"War, here on Balla Fourteen, against Balla Fifteen. Their leader's the Queen. Rumour has it that she wants her throne back."

"Ok," smiled the Doctor, "so whose on our side, fighting against the Queen?"

"Some man, who ended the war, the er... 'Civil war' you called it. Though how war can be 'civil' is beyond me; no one is nice to each other" nodded the bartender proudly, "The Great Leader."

"Great." Grinned the Doctor. "I think we'll go and see him."

The bartender snorted, turned away and muttered under his breath, "wouldn't recommend it."

"Right then, lets go," the Doctor took Rose's arm and turned to leave.

"Hang on; let me have a drink first, sample the local ale." Rose said, while attracting the bartender's attention and ordering her drink.

* * *

They stood outside the palace, staring at the white brick it was made out of. It contrasted greatly with the wooden and grey brick houses they had passed on their way. Windows as tall as a man surrounded the building. They started half way along and worked themselves up. It seemed the only reprieve from the excessive white.

"Well, guess this is it" said Rose unnecessarily.

"Really?" mocked the Doctor "what gave it away?"

They walked forward. When the doors were reached and they found themselves standing on a mat, a chiming noise filled the air and the door swung open.

"Balla Fifteen invention" explained the Doctor, "a lot of this stuff must have been left over from when the countries had an alliance, back when the Queen still ruled."

They walked into a cool air conditioned white marble waiting room with a reception desk. A woman, with short spiky black hair and long red false nails, sat behind the desk. She looked up from her computer as they walked in.

"Hello and welcome to Balla Fourteen, how can I help you?" she asked with fake politeness.

"Hi, we're here to see The Leader." Smiled the Doctor, rocking back and forth on his heels

"I'm sorry, he has no appointments scheduled for today." She raised a challenging eyebrow.

The Doctors smile dropped slightly.

"Just tell him 'the Doctor, and his assistant' are here and would like to address him in regards to the war. I am certain he will want to see us." The Doctor bluffed. When he said 'Doctor' people often assumed he was the 'Doctor' of something that appealed to them. He'd let this leader bloke invite him in, and then they'd have a bit of a chat.

He ignored Rose's glare.

The receptionist put the phone down.

"Up the stairs, third floor." She smiled at Rose, in an almost sinister way.

* * *

The room was white.

Empty.

The whole of the third floor was an empty space. Cream walls, characterless and open.

Footsteps sounded, far off, but Rose couldn't see where they were coming from. She could only guess, from the sound, that they were getting closer.

The curved, black metal staircase at the corner behind Rose and the Doctor started to shudder, as though someone was climbing down.

As black pressed trousers with shiny black shoes came into view, the Doctor suddenly had a horrible thought.

"No," he breathed "no, no."

A man gracefully jumped the last step, soles like springs at the bottom of his feet.

"Hello, Doctor," The Master smiled.

"No, you not supposed to be here, you can't…Master." The Doctor's mouth moved wordlessly once or twice, before he could croak the words. "I'm in Hell."

"Not quite." Smiled the blonde, his dark red tie quite a contrast to the colourless world around them. "But one wrong move and I'll send you there."

The Doctor suddenly saw squares at the top of the wall around the edge, a pattern he had first thought to be cream walls. Square hatches, small red lights. A laser gun, each with its own sensor.

Rose began to laugh. Spluttered breath at first then full blown out cackles. Hysterically, tears fell down her face.

The Master looked at her for the first time, his eyes wide.

Bent over gasping for breath, her sobs echoed throughout the empty room.

"Rose," The Master took a step forward, suddenly shocking Rose into action. She turned around, almost in slow motion and ran back down the stairs, out the way she came.

"No!" bellowed the Master, "Don't shoot, I said don't shoot!"

He ran after her, leaving the Doctor standing there, only his head turning to follow their progress. His mouth dropped open.

Rose ran down the stairs faster than her pursuer, despite her heels. It was a skill she had never lost, running away faster than anything; even faster when the thing behind her was as repulsive as this.

She took a chance and looked behind her, seeing him not there. A much more terrifying sight than if he had been. She stopped suddenly.

In front of her, looking at her, how dare he? How dare he look like him!

A noise between a laugh and a sob broke through her lips.

"Rose… Rose, love, I didn't." he took a step towards her, touching her arm, a grotesque look of concern upon his treacherous face.

Rose shook her head, again and again, tears falling feely. It was easier to be pulled into his arms than to fight it. To fight his strong, warm, safe hold.

Expect, he wasn't safe, was he? Thought Rose Tyler, as she took a deep breath, her nose filling with snot as she realised she couldn't breathe.

He was The Master.

_(Hey, just a quick reminder: this story follows my story 'OUT OF TIME'_

_This story is set after series 2 of Torchwood, mid series 3 of Doctor Who and at the end of series 2 the Master died on the Valiant. But there were always two Universes…)_


	3. Warfare

**Chapter Three: Warfare**

The Time War would forever burn in his memory.

As a death of enemy forever can.

The day the Doctor had died.

The day both their TARDIS's had died.

The day he found himself trapped on Earth. Alone.

Being insane and trying to destroy the world is only fun if someone is trying to stop you and you're not stuck on that same world.

The Master needed a way to travel once again, to get off this boring short lived planet.

He needed to get back to power.

It was always about power.

To find a way of accessing equipment that was as advanced as he could get. To travel among the stars again, or even perhaps later, among time. First make a ship, a device a way of travelling of conquering the stars.

A way off a singular planet stuck in a backwards era.

What place held the most alien equipment? The most knowledge? The most power?

Torchwood.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDDDDDDWWDWDWDWDWDWDDWDWDWDWD

After she glanced behind, in the mirror of the black jeep, Rose began to play with the radio.

"And today's top story." the dry female emotionless voice of the BBC news reader stated, "Elliot Madden, the head robotic engineer, of the late John Lumic's cybertronics empire, denounced all claims today of knowledge of the break out last week when two fully functional cybermen units killed fourteen people and marked a government building, using an electrical surge. The word on that wall was, of course, 'LISA'. There is no comment from Torchwood as what that could actually mean, but there are reports-"

Rose pressed a different button, cutting the news reel dead. She didn't want to learn what other less informed people thought of her work, at least not on her day off.

Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' followed. She quickly moved her eyes once again and pressed a different button. She really wished Pete wouldn't leave his CDs in her car.

An opera filled the heavy black car with the sounds of a female singer attempting to break glass.

That too was quickly turned off.

A rapper raved on, about 'birds', his 'posse' and the ways of drugs and war of the streets of New York. Rose shook her head as she remembered listening to it years ago and actually liking it. Did that make her old at just 25?

Pressing buttons at random, Rose tore her eyes away from the road in frustration, just as she was driving past a junction.

A car pulled out, just as Rose looked up from the radio, she didn't manage to hit the brakes in time.

The cars crashed in a head on collision.

The air bag inflated and the world faded, blurry around the edges.

Then black.

---

Pushing the suffocating air bag away from her, Rose struggled until she unclipped the seat belt and swung open the door. It thudded as it hit its own hinges. Squeezing past the bag, she coughed as she took her first breath of air, in what felt like such a long time, only to be nearly smothered by the smoke of the engine as it filled her lungs.

Whilst coughing, she all but fell out of the car. Stumbling on her pink high heals, Rose forced herself to breathe in the dirty air and stop coughing.

A siren was getting nearer.

"What the hell were you doing!!" screamed a man, near her car. His sharp black suit still looking strangely neat, even if there was blood trickling from a fierce injury on his head and dipping onto his white shirt.

"ME!" bellowed Rose, suddenly realising who she was talking to, the driver in the other car, "you should have stopped!!"

"You should have been looking!"

"I was looking!" Rose almost growled, ignoring the almost blinding head ache.

"No, you weren't or you would have seen me pull out!" the man sharked back.

"You should have waited for me to pass,"

"I saw you! Head down, probably doing your lippy! You could have gotten both of us killed!" he pointed an accusing finger at her and something within her was sure he was more worried about himself than anyone else.

Rose didn't like the man.

"Yeah or maybe you were trying to get me killed?" Rose pulled out her electric teaser from her back pocket and began advancing towards the stranger with the caramel brown hair. "Hands up, I'm arresting you on suspicion of attempted murder. You do not have to say anything, but I really would like to know who the hell you are and why the hell you just tried to kill me!" screeching the last part, Rose began to advance on him.

"WHAT THE F-" three Torchwood issued jeeps pulled up and several men and women pulled their weapons out and pointed them at the man.

In the back ground an up beat, cheerful song by the Bad flow echoed from Rose's car radio.

Dwdwdwdwdwddwdwdwdwdwddwdwdwdwdwdwdwdwwdwwdwddwwdwdwddwdwd

The guns outlining the roof of the room the Doctor had been in, had suddenly retraced back into the holes where they came, and sealed back up. A section of the wall swung slowly like an out of time electric door suitable for wheelchairs and large prams. Despite his instincts telling him to run, the Doctor walked through.

The Master was pacing, back and forth, his brow creased. Each time he walked past Rose looking at something in the far corner, his left eyebrow lifted slightly. The Doctor turned to look at Rose as she poured a deep dark golden brown liquid into a short glass, before taking a seat on one of the red and black overstuffed armchairs near the fireplace. The fire blazed needlessly on, as the Time Lord was once again reminded what a show man the Master was, a true evil genius. As the Doctor moved to stand protectively near Rose, he realised the fire was fake. The planet Crackta had developed the cold flame, now it was used like air conditioning for the traditionalists.

Silent tears dropped down Rose's eyes, as she took a drink of the strong smelling alcohol.

"How do you know each other?" the words echoed through the warm looking room of the Master's private quarters.

When Rose showed no response, the Master began to laugh at the Doctor's question.

"How do we know each other?" he laughed hard and bitter, "you don't know her at all, do you? Not a bit." He turned to Rose "Is this your Doctor? The one you love so much more than me?"

Rose turned around to face him. That left her neck at a very odd angle and both Time Lords were sure her neck would snap, "You left me, Harry! All alone in some bloody forest, you left me!"

"Did she never tell you about me? About what we were? God, I bet you don't even know she's an alcoholic." 'Harry' scoffed the last bit of his sentence, and then added "or the war. The Cyberwar in the parallel world. Not the Time War."

The Doctor ignored him.

"What about you? How did you survive the Valiant?"

"The what?" The Master eyebrows rose, his face twisting into a look of arrogant confusion as though he was simply humouring the Doctor.

"He thinks you're the 'MASTER' from this universe," Rose turned his name into a sneer "That one died on the Valiant. Jack, he only called him 'the Master' and not 'Harold Saxon', so I never made the connection. But it's you, isn't it? You're the Master? The Master from the other Universe... the one I met, the one I loved."

"Rose, what are you? How are you?" the Doctor tried again running his hands widely through his hair. "Ok, so he's from the other Universe and there he survived the Time War."

"Yes, but you didn't, the all great and mighty Doctor, in the other universe at least died in the war." Explained the parallel Master with a snort. He now sat slumped on a chair with his legs up.

Rose was silent.

"Did he tell you he knew me Rose?" the Doctor looked at her harshly as she ignored him, or possibly couldn't even hear. She just stared back the heat on the fire reflecting on her face. "Two Masters, Two Doctors, did you know we knew each other?"

The moved to pull her shoulder towards him, suddenly paranoid that she had some great scheme of destroying him, her and her Master.

"No." Rose said finally looking at him. "He told me you never existed in the other world."

Both turned to look at the Master, he raised his eyebrows.

"What?" he shifted slightly in his chair. "He was already dead, and you'd have just run off and tried to find him."

DWDWDWDWDWDWWWWWWWWWWWWWWDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDW

Rain pounded hard onto the black umbrella. Rose thought back to the last time she had seen her stepfather, after the meeting that morning she'd had to get out of.

'LISA'; the burnt writing on the wall. She'd been told by Pete it was a fringe group of Cybermen activists. The kind of people, usually scientific researchers, who had gone though horrific events, were people scarred with a mental numbness they could not shake. Their families murdered, tortured. A small group of twenty had joined John Lumic in the early days of cybermen creation as researchers. People who believed it was better to feel nothing in a cold hard heartless shell than feel everything and be weak with the added pain of being human.

These people created the cybermen.

After the cybermen were stopped, back when Rose and the Doctor had first come to this Universe, the deactivated were left in the locked down ruins of the Lumic Empire. Then half of them had escaped to travel to the other world. Reactivated somehow - a popular belief claimed LISA was also behind this - they were left alone for five years. Until they woke. Two of them came free and staged the attack and killing of fourteen people in LISA's name. After that, Torchwood had been forced to check the deactivated cybermen were still in hibernation.

That team never reported back.

Now there was a war to fight, Torchwood and the Human race on one side, LISA and the cybermen on the other. Lumic's Intelligence Support Agency or LISA was dangerous, and that meant war, on her own, without her Doctor. She didn't want to save the world without him, and part of her didn't want to save the world at all.

An abandoned store alcove was where Rose had been told to stand and wait until she was introduced to Torchwood's new chief battle scientist. Rose had glanced through his file, annoyed there was no mug shot. Good test scores, very good, strangely good. Doctor good. And a past which seemed to only go back as far as six years. Not something Torchwood would have accepted, but the organization was desperate. Especially with the head Communication and Cybermen Intelligence specialist refusing to fight in the war. Rose only had a few months left, only had to stay until January, then no more Torchwood. She was finished; let them fight this war, for her it was over.

Taking down her umbrella, she walked into a small alcove and waited.

"Miss Tyler?"

Rose spun around, suddenly realising that she had been unable to hear the footsteps as well as the rain.

"Yeah?" Rose replied.

"Ianto Jones," nodded the man, before taking down his black umbrella and stepping into the alcove next to her. "The door's open."

Rose turned pushed the once white door open; its green graffiti looked like the most recent thing, in a decade.

Rose was surprised not to be greeted into the centre of the shop but to a small set of downwards spiralling stairs. Looking behind, her Rose saw Mr Jones following right after her. Turning to where the hop window should have been, she saw two old grey cabinets, one side stuck with a faded poster of Blondie. The shutters on the outside were just for show.

Rose descended the steps, noticing how the walls changed from a dirty cream to a bight white, the floor from a pale brown with crusty mystery splodges to a hard white tiled floor. A dentist, a hospital or a lab.

Her father's voice echoed through the downwards corridor.

"Hope this ok then, had the boys down here for months getting it ready"

"Sir, it's a dream I assure you,"

That voice.

Rose knew that voice. One was her step father sure, but the other?

"I did expect something a little grander on the outside but when undercover, it can't be helped. This is the start of a war after all."

That man, the man in the car, the man Torchwood had let off for believing it really had been an accident. Her Mum had even called her paranoid, the whole idea was laughable. Or at least it was until now.

The crash earlier that week, watching the man get taken away in a Torchwood high security van, after he had made an attempt on her life. Only to be let off later as there was 'no evidence'?

The corridor got small and Rose was forced to duck her head.

A bright white lab greater her. Something was bubbling on a lab table in the centre an emerald shade of green. Pipes and a Bunsen burner as well as several other jars connected together a complex piece of chemistry equipment. A periodic table on the wall, a cyberman helmet in glass cabinet, along side a humanoid skull. A white board full of artist familiar squiggles.

"Ah, Rose" the man she regarded as her father smiled, standing side by side with another suit clad man.

The man smiled at her smugly.

"This is Harold Saxon, your new partner."

_Sorry for the delay, University applications. Need I say more? _

_Please review, I think I'm the only one who reads this now._


End file.
